


pretty venom

by luxxurycar



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: listen it's fine it's good she's fine, this is basically just a more detailed look at the scene from episode 9 bc i'm in love with cha cha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24466339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxxurycar/pseuds/luxxurycar
Summary: Cha Cha wakes up handcuffed to the radiator, Hazel standing over her.
Relationships: Cha Cha/Hazel, Cha-Cha & Hazel (Umbrella Academy)
Kudos: 8





	pretty venom

She wakes with a start, but the noise torn from her throat is soft, more whimper than anything. Her head throbs; for a moment she doesn’t remember where she is. The world slowly comes into focus as she waits for her vision to clear; it’s probably only a few seconds, but it feels like minutes: dresser, lamp, something wrapped tight over her mouth, cold grip of metal around her left wrist. She tugs once, twice, before the reality sets in: she is trapped. She blinks, fear catching in her chest before she can shove it back down like always. She blinks again, looking up. “Hazel,” she tries to say. It comes out in a muffled whimper, thanks to whatever’s on her mouth. 

“Cha Cha, I know this will be hard for you to understand but I want out. I’m done. I quit,” he says, looking down at her. For an instant she doesn’t understand. _Quitting?_ Her head throbs. Why would he want to _quit_? She doesn’t remember what happened after the...after the donut shop. Fear claws its way back up into her chest and makes itself comfortable. She makes another sound behind the tape, a pathetic, embarrassing whimper, and is almost glad that Hazel’s words mostly disguise it. “We’ve been working together for a long long time, we’re good at what we do; we can kill anyone.” She looks away, down at the metallic silver of the handcuff on her wrist. His words aren’t adding any clarity. “When I got the order to kill you, I knew I couldn’t do this anymore. I’d appreciate it if you could respect my wishes and allow us to go our separate ways.” 

She tries to think between the throbs of pain from her temple. If she reached up to touch it, she’s positive her fingers would come back red. _This doesn’t make sense_ , she thinks, rather unhelpfully. She can see the logic in his apparent worry that she’d be upset about this; certainly she isn’t _thrilled_ , but she doesn’t understand the rest of it. The handcuff, the tape...these are things they’ve used on their targets, over the years. Never on each other. _He would never_ , she thinks, even as her brain registers the words _separate ways_ and the reality that she _doesn’t know_ what he ‘would never’ anymore dawns on her.

Her lashes flutter as she looks up at him again, wincing away from the light of the lamp beside him. His expression is unreadable, his eyes dark. Fear works its way up her throat as he reaches for her and it’s a moment before she realizes he’s just removing the tape. She doesn’t speak even after it’s gone. She doesn’t think there are words for this. She blinks again, slowly, as if all of this, as if _he_ , will be gone when she opens her eyes again. He is not. He stands, just looking at her, the silence growing monstrous and ugly between them. She tries again to order her thoughts, setting out the things she knows are true: she is trapped. Hazel has trapped her. Hazel is...leaving. Her lashes flutter again. 

“Aren’t you gonna say anything?” Hazel asks at last. If this were hours earlier, if she was whole again and her head didn’t throb with every breath, she would have laughed. As it is, she lets the silence stretch for a few more seconds, pushing the fear away. She won’t give him the satisfaction of witnessing pain. 

“This world is ending in three days,” she says when she can manage to force her voice out steadily, like she’s not embarrassingly helpless on the floor of a dirty motel room. “And here you are just thinking about getting your dick wet,” she continues, lifting her chin as she realizes that she’s successfully faked nonchalance. Hazel reacts like she thought he would; his chin dips, his shoulders drop. _He’s not an entirely different person,_ she reassures herself. _It’s just Hazel._

“ _Man_ ,” he mutters under his breath, taking a few steps away. She takes a breath; hadn’t realized she’d been holding it while he was still within arms reach of her. _Stupid_ , she chastises herself. _It’s just_ **_Hazel_** **,** she reminds herself again, because she’s not _afraid_ of her _partner_. 

“What, you think I didn’t know about you and your dried up donut whore?” She asks, and almost makes it sound like she means it. It helps that she doesn’t like the bitch. Who does she think she is, waltzing in and...and _taking_ Hazel after only _four days_. _Pathetic_. 

“Hold on! Hold on! This isn’t-” Hazel steps forward again, into her space. She barely turns her reflexive recoil into a calmer tilt of her chin. He brandishes the gun, shakes it at her. “I’m not-I’m in love,” he insists. 

Her chest goes so cold that for a moment she thinks he’s inadvertently shot her. _Love? He’s in_ **_love_** _?_ Of all the things, all the pathetic excuses she expected from him...this wasn’t one of them. She looks up at him again, studying him like she’s never seen him before. _Love._ She’d scoff if she could get her breath back. What does he know about _love_? “Okay?!” He shouts, shaking the gun at her again. “I have no intention of letting it go,” he adds, more calmly, as if she didn’t understand. She lets her head loll to the side, lets the throbs from her temple override her thoughts for a moment. _Pathetic,_ she thinks again, only she doesn’t know whether she means him this time. 

She gathers herself again after a moment, blinking back the headache. The fear is gone, at least. Her chest still feels cold. Words claw their way up her throat as she breathes, steadying herself for...she doesn’t know. She’s not in any condition to fight; not physically, anyway. _Love,_ she thinks again. _Everything you think you know about love, you learned from **me**. _ She wants to scream in his face, grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he remembers the long, quiet nights in dark hotel rooms, lit only by the streetlights outside, the longer days spent driving through deserts or blizzards or cornfields, every coffee she’s ever bought him, every breakfast lunch and dinner spent across the table from him in a hundred nondescript diners, every shitty rental car, every chase, every fight, every kill. The words catch in her throat and choke her; she says nothing, and then Hazel is speaking again, his voice steady once more. “I don’t have to justify myself to you,” he says, almost sighing. “This is my life,” he adds. 

“You won’t have a life in three days, shitheel,” she responds reflexively, an echo of so many similar arguments across so many days. It’s easy, drawing on the past, letting it carry her through whatever this has become. “You and your whore will be dead, just like everyone else,” she adds, because logic is usually the way to get through to him when he’s got a stupid idea. “So be sensible here,” she adds, bracing herself on the radiator she’s cuffed to so she can sit up a little more, stop looking so damn _pathetic._ “We’ve got a great job. The _best_ job,” she reminds him. “We get to visit exotic places, meet new people, and then kill them,” she lets her mouth quirk into a half smile. He’ll remember now, surely. Their travels are a blur of motels and diners, coffee and pastries from whatever shitty place is close enough. He enjoyed it, of course he did. “We got it made, asshole,” she adds, letting their past arguments echo through her words again. “You just gotta wake up and smell the coffee. We’re gonna find the briefcase, get it back to the Commission, and then go back to the way things were,” she shrugs, as if it will be simple. No. _It **will** be simple, _ she tells herself. She’ll _make_ it simple, drag those superpowered assholes back here and torture them until they’re forced to give her the briefcase back; bend the situation to her will-as long as it’ll bring him back. 

“I don’t want it to go back to the way things were,” he says then, quietly, like he’s ashamed. _Good_ , she thinks after a heartbeat, _he should be ashamed_. Her anger surges forward, like it always does when something hurts. Rip it out and deal with the pain later, that’s always been her motto. But this is _Hazel_ , she remembers just in time, before the words rush irrevocably past her lips. She blinks. Once, twice. 

“Three days left,” she repeats, as if this will change his mind, as if these words, if spoken in the right order at the right time, will reopen the door that was just slammed in her face. He looks at her then, really looks at her like it’s his turn to study her like he’s never seen her before. _Hazel_ , she wants to say. _Hazel, it’s **me**. _

And then his face changes. “Well, I’d rather have three days left with her than three thousand more with you, you coldhearted bitch,” he says, with a finality that sounds like turning a key in the lock and trapping her. 

She stares at him for what feels like an eternity. The only thing she can think, absurdly, is _I don’t understand_ , so her mouth moves before her brain catches up. _Rip out the thing that hurts and deal with the pain later._ “Okay then, shoot me,” she snaps. Her words hang in the air between them before Hazel’s gun comes up, smoothly, like she’s just another target. Maybe he _wants_ to kill her. Maybe it’s just reflex after so long following orders snapped in the same tone. She doesn’t know. 

“Shoot me,” she repeats, staring down the barrel of the gun. “If you leave this room and I’m still alive, I’m coming after you and your ugly slut,” she growls, realizing as the words leave her mouth what they mean. _Kill me_ , she thinks. _Just kill me_. There’s three days left, she won’t have time to catch them if they’re smart-and Hazel _is_ smart. “And when I find you,” she continues, the words leaving her mouth in a rush, “There’ll be no speeches, no last words, I’m just gonna kill you. But first I’m gonna kill her. In front of you. Real slow,” she narrows her eyes, looking up at him past the barrel of the gun. “So you can feel every ounce of her pain,” she adds. It’s the cruelest thing she’s ever said to him. _Kill me, kill me, kill me,_ she thinks, as if he can hear her. His hand shakes. _Kill me_ , she thinks, and doesn’t let herself close her eyes. “Do it!” She snaps. He lowers the gun. 

“So long, partner,” he says after a moment. He doesn’t meet her eyes. She watches him cross the room towards the door, and suddenly the surging fear is back. He’s not going to kill her. He’s just going to _leave_ her here, like a piece of _trash_. 

“Hazel,” she says. “Hazel, where the hell do you think you’re going?” She snaps, tugging on the handcuff. He can’t leave her here. He just _can’t_. She tugs harder on the handcuff. “Hazel, get back here, I know how to find you,” she yells as he opens the door. “You’re dead, Hazel,” she adds. “You and your ugly whore, you’re dead,” she yells, yanking harder. The fear rises up in her throat, choking her as she tries to scream his name again. _He can’t leave me here_ , she thinks even as she hears the sound of the car engine outside. _He can’t he can’t he can’t_ , her mind repeats as she screams again, a wordless yell that would surely provoke some kind of alarm if this wasn’t the shittiest motel they’ve ever stayed in. 

She screams herself hoarse after a while, in between pulling so hard on the handcuff that her wrist and hand are soaked in blood. Her heart is pounding, her head throbs. Her throat is scraped raw. “Hazel,” she whispers, thinking about all the things she was going to tell him, before her mind was wiped clean by the sight of him kissing that _waitress_ , before her blood turned to ice and she let herself think _rip out the thing that hurts_ , like always; before she remembered that it was just _Hazel_ , and that she could never, ever- 

She sniffles, shifts against the radiator so the handcuff isn’t pressed so hard against the throbbing mess she’s made of her wrist, curls her legs towards herself so she can rest her head on her knee. And then, finally, Cha Cha lets herself cry. 


End file.
